


real (or not real)

by plinys



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: F/F, Fluff and Angst, episode speculation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-18
Updated: 2018-03-18
Packaged: 2019-04-04 01:54:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14009625
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: Ava’s voice shakes, as she says, “How do I know that I… That I’m the real one? That I've ever been real?"(Speculation based on the "I, Ava" promo pics)





	real (or not real)

**Author's Note:**

> the promo pics dropped like 2 hours ago and im more convinced than ever for robot!ava being canon, but i also got this idea for a short little angst/fluff thing and ended up deciding to spend an hour writing this instead of sleeping. unbeta'd cause everyone else is asleep wow.

This was a lot.

A lot that Sara wasn’t entirely certain how to process. If she was having a hard time, then it is no wonder Ava who had just found out that she wasn’t _unique_ was doing much worse.

Sara looks over at where Ava sits. Curling in on herself, long legs tucked up against her chest, a defensive position. She’s sitting on the other side of the jumpship, as far away from Sara as possible, looking smaller than Sara has ever seen her. Somehow shrinking into the folds of her navy pantsuit. Looking not at all like the _Director Sharpe_ that she has been acting like lately.

Looking like something else, something softer, and uncertain, and a little bit afraid.

“How do I know,” her voice is small, barely there, trailing off…

So unlike her, so unlike the Ava that Sara knows so well.

Or at least that she thought she had known.

Now, though she wasn’t quite so sure.

Her heart is tight in her chest, her lungs not working, such that it feels almost suffocating and like she can barely breathe. It feels a bit as though Sara’s entire world has come crashing down on her. As if the universe is having one giant laugh at her expense, because of course, just when she thought that she could be good and happy and have this one wonderful thing, something would have to go wrong.

She barely has it in her to be surprised anymore.

No, instead that space is filled with a vast emptiness, hurt and pain and too many questions that Sara is not one hundred percent certain that they will ever get the answer to.

And Ava…

Ava is still here.

Her Ava.

The Ava that she kissed this morning, before all this whole mess happened and now...

Sara can read the self doubt the lines of Ava’s face, can hear it in the way that her voice shakes when she tries to speak again, “How do I know that I… That I’m the real one? That I've ever been real? How am I supposed to-”

“Hey,” Sara cuts her off, because she can hear the start of a panic attack in Ava’s voice. Can see it in the way her hands are shaking and in the wetness that gathers at the edge of her eyes. “Don’t say that.”

She doesn’t miss it. The way Ava looks up at her, her eyes still watery and unsure. Ava’s always had doubts, insecurities that Sara has tried to convince her away from. Pressing kisses to Ava’s lips and all over her body over and over again until she stops apologizing for being too tall or too awkward or too much of anything at all, kissed her until all Ava could do was look up at her with eyes that spoke of love and understanding and when she would pretend to believe Sara for just a moment.

Pushing her own doubts and pained reactions to this revelation down to focus on Ava, and what Ava needs of her right now, is not the easiest thing to do, but Sara forces herself to put her own breakdown on hold and focus instead on the woman before her.

Her girlfriend.

Who needed her right now.

Sara stands up from her chair, crossing the jumpship for the first time to go to where Ava is. She can feel Ava’s eyes on her the entire time that she moves. Watching her carefully, body shifting into a slightly more defensive position as if she thought that Sara might want to hurt her.

Her chest somehow manages to get tighter at that realization.

She is careful when she sits down beside Ava, making certain that their shoulders don’t bump together, that she keeps a space between them. Giving Ava what little space she can. Not pushing her until she is ready.

They’re both silent for a moment.

A long moment.

So long that Sara feels like it might never end.

But then slowly Ava bridges the gap between them, reaches out to take Sara’s hand from where it is resting on the floor of the jumpship, and threads their fingers together. Instinctively Sara squeezes down on Ava’s hand, a small comfort, one that brings a noise almost like a sob forth from Ava’s lips.

Sara feels a bit like crying too.

But one of them has to be strong.

So she pushes on.

“Ava," she prompts, ever so softly.

It’s like the floodgates are opening, all at once, Ava’s voice comes sharp between choked off sobs. “What if I’m not the real one? What if I’m one of them? How would I even know if I was? I mean how do you… How can you ever look at me right now? How can you even stand to be around me know that I might not be… That I might not be real?”

“You’re real,” Sara insists.

Even though a part of her is still screaming that maybe she isn’t.

That maybe the woman she’s been falling for hasn’t been human at all.

But another part of her, stronger and more desperate, needs to believe that Ava is real. That all of this can be explained away, and that they will be able to move on from this. She can’t lose Ava. Not now. Not when she’s only just gotten her. Not when she’s only just reopened herself to the prospect of being in love with someone again, only began to image that there could be some sort of happy ending to this story, and that that happy ending could involve the woman sitting right beside her.

“You’re real,” Sara repeats, stronger this time.

Ava’s voice is so small, heavy with self doubt, as she asks for reassurance, “How do you know?”

“Because I love you.”

This hadn’t been how she intended to say it.

She’d wanted to wait for the right moment, when things were good and easy and at peace.

But she hadn’t gotten a chance yet and now here they were.

At what felt like it could almost be the point of no return, the beginning of the end to the relative happiness that they’d both been clinging to, and Sara wasn’t going to go through all of this without letting Ava know that she loved her.

It takes Ava a moment to reply, but when she does, it’s still that same tone, still unsure, as she manages just the word, “What?”

Sara shifts slightly, so that she is looking at Ava, so that she can see the tears that have started to freely fall from her eyes. She uses the hand not currently holding Ava’s to wipe them away, a soft thumb against a warm cheek. A real cheek. A human cheek.

She kisses Ava, because she needs to do so, she needs _this_. They both do.

It’s a slow kiss, soft and broken, not the heat and passion that normally characterizes all of their interactions. It’s soft and slow and Ava’s mouth barely moving against hers, but pressing just so, holding steady onto her with her hands, as if Ava was afraid that Sara would slip away from her, would change her mind a moment into the kiss.

Sara kisses back with the same soft pace. Trying to put everything that is so hard to say into the  press of her lips against Ava’s. To pour all the love from inside her heart, into Ava’s, so that she never had to doubt herself again.

She’s not certain it works, but when they pull apart after a moment, there’s a soft hint of a smile on Ava’s lips, and Sara feels a bit like her heart is breaking all over again, only this time in a good way. 

“I love you,” she says again.

Sara is certain that she could say those three words for the rest of her life and never get sick of them.

In fact, she intends to.

“I love you. That’s real. This is real. And nothing else matters.”

  
  
  



End file.
